Best TV Series of All Time

Two weeks ago I published a list of the best TV series of all time as suggested by the German magazine "TV Movie". I was very critical of the list. Click here to read my post. I decided to put together my own list, but I felt myself incapable of making an objective list, because there are so many television series that I have never watched. Apart from that, I have my own tastes, in particular a natural tendency to rate comedy series lower than drama series.

Eventually I thought of a way to make a list that's almost objective. I gave points to all TV series given Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the last 50 years, based on whether they won awards or were only nominated. I added a few bonus points for the current Amazon best sellers. I multiplied the result by an age factor to give a bias to newer series. Then I multiplied by a "cult factor" to give a bias to series that I hear people talking about. This is the result.

1. Sopranos
2. Game of Thrones
3. Star Trek
4. Xena Warrior Princess
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
6. Sex and the City
7. Ally McBeal
8. Lost
9. MASH
10. Taxi
11. Highlander
12. La Femme Nikita
13. Homeland
14. Breaking Bad
15. Orange is the New Black
16. Twin Peaks
17. Dexter
18. Columbo
19. X-Files
20. 24
21. Boardwalk Empire
22. Office
23. Cheers
24. Downton Abbey
25. Mad Men
26. Frasier
27. Rome
28. Mr. Robot
29. West Wing
30. NYPD Blue
31. Friends
32. Batman
33. Seinfeld
34. Kojak
35. Big Bang Theory
36. Avengers
37. ER
38. Heroes
39. Deadwood
40. Desperate Housewives
41. House of Cards
42. 3rd Rock from the Sun
43. Dallas
44. True Blood
45. Charlie's Angels
46. Alias
47. Star Trek: TNG
48. Walking Dead
49. Starsky and Hutch
50. Simpsons

Before you complain that one of your favourite series is missing from the list, there are a few of mine missing as well. In a personal list I would have put "Doctor Who" near the top, but the series had so few points to begin with that even the maximum cult factor couldn't push it into the top 50. I'm also sad that recent series like "Daredevil", "Arrow" and "Gotham" are missing from the list. If it had been my own list I wouldn't have included "Sex and the City" at all, because I hate it. People have different tastes.

Nevertheless, comments are welcome. Let me know what you think of the list.